President, First Lady Announce Partnership to Help Afghan Children Prepare for School
Remarks by the President to the Children and Faculty at Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School
Samuel W. Tucker Elementary School
Alexandria, Virginia

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Laura, for that warm
introduction. I appreciate what a fine job she's doing as
the First Lady. She's a pretty calm voice in a
time -- in turbulent times for our
country. And I'm lucky to be married to her.

I want to thank all the Tucker Tigers for letting me come by to
say, hello. Gosh, it's good to see you all. I
want to thank the fact that you understand that you can make a big
difference in somebody's life, that you can help a boy and girl who
needs help. And you've done a darn good job. I understand
you raised $2,500. That's a lot of money to
raise. But you did it by reading books.

So you accomplished two things: one, you helped somebody
in Afghanistan who needs your help; and secondly, you practiced
reading, which is one of the most important things you can
do. I hope you read more than you watch
TV. That's really important. How many of you are
going to go to college? Can you raise your hands if you're
thinking about going to college? Boy, that's
great. (Applause.) Guess what? That
means you've set an important goal. That's what that means,
you've set a good, important goal. It also means you'd
better learn how to read. So by reading all those books,
it's really a good step toward meeting your goal.

So thanks for letting us come. I also want to thank your
teachers. Thank you all for being teachers. Teaching is a
noble profession and an incredibly important job. So make
sure you listen to your teachers. They care about you a lot,
and they want you to meet your goal, and they want you to learn how to
read. And Laura and I want to thank you from the bottom of
our hearts for taking on this important, vital profession.

I want to thank the principal, as well, and thank the
Superintendent of schools. I want to thank you
all. Gosh, it's such a pleasure to come. I'm accompanied by
some people who I admire a lot. Our Secretary of Education,
Rod Paige has come with us today. Rod, thank you for being
here. (Applause.) Our Secretary of Labor, Elaine
Chau. Good to see you again, Elaine. (Applause.)

You probably know this already, I don't need to tell you this, but
each state has got two United States senators. And here in
the state of Virginia, you've got two senators that represent your
state at the Capitol. And you've got two really fine United States
senators, both of whom have come today to say hello to
us. And both of them have come today to show their support
for this important project. And here they
are: Senator John Warner, Senator George
Allen. (Applause.) Thank you all for
coming. And from Miami, Florida, there's a Congresswoman
here, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is here, as well. Ileana, thank
you for coming. (Applause.)

I want to thank Harold Decker and all those who work for the Red
Cross for participating in this important project. I want to
thank all of you who helped on the uniform project, as
well. You know, I oftentimes talk about the need to be a
responsible society. In order to have a responsible society,
there's such a thing as corporate responsibility. So it
warmed our hearts to know that many of you in corporate America heard
the call to help. And thank you so much for
coming. I appreciate your efforts.

Today, as well, we're joined by a special young lady from Texas.
That's where Laura and I are from. She flew up here for a
reason, and it's because I wanted to single her out as someone who has
done a little extra -- not a little extra; a lot
extra -- for the fund to help Afghan boys and
girls. Her name is Olivia Bennett. Olivia, would
you please stand up over here? (Applause.) Olivia
is from South Lake, Texas, and she's got a unique talent. At
the age of 12 years old, she is a really good artist. And you know
what Olivia did? She painted a lot of pictures, and sold
them, and thus far has raised $33,000 for the fund to help Afghan
children. But you know what? She's only a third of the way
toward her goal. She told me she is going to raise
$100,000. And that is so wonderful. Thank you,
Olivia, very much for being here. (Applause.)

I want to thank Haroun Amin for being here, as well, the Afghan
Charge d'affaire. Thank you so much for coming,
sir. (Applause.) And, Madam President, fine
job. There will be a Madam President one of these days, and
if you keep talking the way you talk, you may be
her. (Laughter and applause.) Very good job.

I know you all know that we're fighting a war. We're
fighting against people who really don't like freedom, people who want
to hurt us. And I want to assure you that we'll do
everything we can to make sure they don't. We'll do everything we
can. But we're fighting for more than just a war; we're
fighting to help people, too. We want the world not only to
be peaceful, we want the world to be a better place. We want
boys and girls to grow up in a world that is free, and where they can
go to school.

And we're making some good progress. I want to tell you
all that we've helped people get food. A lot of times on TV,
all you see is about the bombs. But we've prevented mass
starvation because we've moved a lot of food into the
region. We're helping build roads. We're helping
build schools. We're helping make sure boys and girls or
others have got health care and health clinics. And we're
also doing a lot to help children get a good education.

Laura talked a lot about education, and she's
right -- if you're educated, you've got a much
better chance to have a hopeful future and a happy
future. And that's what we want. We want that for
every boy and girl, whether they live in America or anywhere else in
the world.

And the amazing thing about this -- and a lot
of Americans have trouble understanding
this -- that for the first time young girls are
going to be going to school in Afghanistan. See, that's hard
for us to believe, isn't it? Most of you, after summer,
dread going back to school. Not all of
you -- some of you. But there are boys
and girls -- there's girls in Afghanistan who
dream about getting to go at all. And as a result of what
our country and many of our friends have done, girls get to go to
school, too. Starting this week.

And when they go to school, we want to make sure they've got
supplies. We want to make sure they've got tablets to write on and
crayolas to color with, and even jump ropes to jump
with. And so one of the things that's happened is we've put
a coalition -- that means a group of people
together to send textbooks to Afghanistan. We've sent 4
million textbooks thus far, and there's another 6 million to go in
Afghanistan, so the boys and girls will have something to
read. (Applause.)

And as you heard earlier, we're putting basic school supply kits
together, so that 120,000 Afghan children will have some school
supplies by June. And they're called school chests, and
today I had a chance to see some of your classmates putting the chests
together. Matter of fact, I got to load a couple of
notebooks myself. Forty notebooks per chest --
that's a lot of notebooks. But that's how many children
there are in a class.

And there's a lot of other things in there, as
well. There's pencils, and rulers; as I mentioned, crayons,
jump ropes, a soccer ball, so the kids can play soccer, get a little
exercise while you're doing your studies. And so far, I just want you
all to know -- it's kind of a report
here -- that 1,000 of these kits have been put together, a
thousand chests have been assembled.

But that's not enough. We need 2,000 more
chests. And so I'm asking our fellow Americans to rally for
this good cause; to donate and participate in the creation of 2,000
more school supply chests to go to Afghanistan. And if you
want to help, contact your local Red Cross chapter.

You know, I'm asked all the time, what can I do to help in the war
against terror? You can help by helping build one of these
school chests. It doesn't matter how you do it, how you raise the
money. Just get it done.

And the good news is we're a can-do country. We're a
country who responds in a compassionate way. There's no
doubt in my mind, Harold, that the American people will
respond. And when they do, Laura and I will thank them from
the bottom of my heart -- our hearts.

But there's a lot to do. And so for those of you out in
America who wonder what you can do to help, call the Red Cross
office. And they will give you an assignment, and when you
fulfill the assignment you'll know you're making a huge difference, a
significant difference in the life of a boy or a girl in Afghanistan.

Our dream is a world that's peaceful, and our dream is a world that
is hopeful. And the best way to make sure the world is
hopeful is to help people get a good education. And that's
what we're here today to honor.

I want to thank you all for helping somebody. I want to
thank you all for understanding that when you help somebody it really
helps your own life; that when you help somebody in need, that it makes
you a better person. I hope that's a lesson you keep with
you for a long time.

Thanks for letting us come by to say, hello. God bless
you all. (Applause.)